Legacy Info

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Twenty-one generations ago, I created the Taylor family in Create-a-Sim. Mom and Dad (Thomas and Debra Taylor), their three girls (Valorie, Shannon, and Kristine), and Kristine’s husband (Bradley Gaudinier). I separated the family, moving Mom and Dad, as elders, to a little one bedroom house of their own, and moving Shannon and Valorie to share a two bedroom house a few blocks away. Kristine and Bradley started their lives in a two bedroom starter home in Sunset Valley, and thus began my legacy.

As guidelines go, I don’t play by the Legacy “rules” posted on the Sims 3 website, and I don’t score my family; I simply play out their lives as they happen. I played on a 190 day lifespan until I got Generations, instead of the traditional 90-day lifespan, so as to spend lots of quality time with each heir and enable each of them to live full and complete lives. Now with Generations, I have changed to a personalized, 150-day lifespan (Babies: 3 days, Toddlers: 6 days, Children: 10 days, Teens: 16 days, Young Adults: 34 days, Adults: 46 days, Elders: 35 days). In each generation, at least one daughter must be born to the heir of the family. If more than one daughter is born, I take my pick between them or allow the readers to take part in a vote for who will be the new heiress. When she finds a husband to marry, there is no restriction as to who it may be; however, when they are wed, there is no restriction that says he must take the legacy family name. There is no restriction on what lifetime wish she may choose or what occupation she may go into. She may live her life however she wishes. At all times, a secondary heir must be available to the family, should the primary heir fail to meet the expectations of an heir and not give birth to a daughter, or should the primary heir meet an untimely death. This secondary heir can be a sister, aunt, cousin, or other close relation, but must be a blood descendant of the legacy founder through the female line. This does not include any children randomly spawned by story progression with no second parent.

All heirs must earn any money they make, however they choose to make it. All NPC’s are allowed (babysitters, maids, etc.). World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, and Showtime are installed, as well as High-End Loft Stuff, Fast Lane Stuff, Outdoor Living Stuff, Town Life Stuff, and Master Suite Stuff.

There are no restrictions on the siblings of the heir as to who they may marry, if they marry, what they may do with their lives, or where they may live. If there comes a time that the secondary heir is needed, she may find a husband, if she does not already have one, and continue where the previous heir left off. This back-up system has not been necessary in my Sims 3 legacy as of yet, but it was often necessary in my Sims 2 legacy, when random deaths were much more common.

When I choose personality traits for my children, they are randomized in a specific way. For each, a random number generator (http://www.random.org/) is used to select a number between 1 and 5. If the numbers 1 or 4 are chosen, the sibling will receive one of Mom’s traits, which are then randomized again between the numbers of 1 and 5, and the trait is given to the child in the order corresponding to Mom’s traits as they are listed on her panel in-game. If the numbers 2 or 5 are chosen, the sibling will receive one of Dad’s traits, which are also then randomized again between the numbers of 1 and 5, and the trait is given to the child in the order corresponding to Dad’s traits as they are listed on his panel in-game. In either case, if the child has already received one of the selected parent’s traits, roll 1-4 between the remaining traits, and if they’ve already received two of the selected parent’s traits, roll 1-3 between the remaning traits, and so-on. If the number 3 is chosen during the first roll, the randomize trait button is used in-game to choose a random trait of all the traits in-game. This makes it more likely that the child will inherit one of their parents’ personality traits, but  still possible for them to be wholey their own person.

While I did build a legacy estate that I adore, I do not require my legacy heirs to live in it any longer. I used to, for a long time, but after multiple glitches, errors, and other miscellaneous problems in my game that seem to occur more often if I’m playing in that house, I don’t live there anymore. Now, I change houses pretty much every generation to keep things interesting and give me more houses to decorate.

As with the house, I used to have a legacy family graveyard, as well, with all the tombstones of my heirs and their families. After all the problems with my game, I was forced to start my neighborhood over multiple times, and was unable to bring my family tombstones with me. Therefore, my family graveyard in the new neighborhood is rather bare now, and I don’t particularly go to any effort anymore to maintain collecting tombstones of my family members.

It should also be noted that, during Generation 11, the family relocated to Riverview. The Generation 15 heir briefly moved back to Sunset Valley to rekindle her family’s past but was forced to move back to Riverview shortly after her first and only child was born. The family lived in Riverview until Generation 20, when they moved to Bridgeport.

As for computer specs and what I run my game at, my computer is a Dell XPS L702X laptop purchased in October of 2010. It has a quad-core 2.30 GHz processor, 16.00 GB of RAM, dual hard drives with a total of 1.28 TB storage space, and a NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M graphics card. It runs on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system and has an overall Windows Experience Index rating of 5.9. I run my game in fullscreen mode at 1600 x 900 resolution with the maximum graphics settings in-game.

I use a ton of custom content in my game as well; I pretty much would stop playing if I could no longer use any CC. My sources for CC include, but are not limited to, Sims Art Gallery, Lady Frontbum, Peggy Zone, Rose Sims, Simcredible Designs, XM Sims, Mod the Sims, The Sims Resource, Raonjena Sims, All About Style, Anubis Under the Sun, Fresh-Prince Creations, My Blue Book, Liana Sims, My Sims 3 Blog, Club Crimsyn, Stylist Sims, Sims Trastos, Sims 3 Updates, TS3 Maternity Clothes Blog, Sims Tree, Lili Sims, Poppy Sims, NRaas Industries, and the Sims 3 Store.

About the Author

I’m a 22 year-old college student from Southern California. I live with my boyfriend of a year and a half; my cockatiel, Cheekers; and my boyfriend’s dog, a black lab-pit bull mix named Gunny. I’ve been simming since 2003, and in that time, I’ve owned every expansion and stuff pack that they’ve brought out for Sims 1, 2, and 3, as well as some of the console versions. I also enjoy reading, writing fiction, and playing other games–such as World of Warcraft (85 Druid and 85 Hunter), Star Wars: the Old Republic (50 Sage), Mass Effect 1-3, Spore, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Borderlands, Left 4 Dead 2, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and others.

 

 

 

 Winner of Golden Quill for Best of Genre: Legacy
   SILC — Summer 2011